Raw Deal (Larson Brothers #1)(54)
“No shit,” his little brother scoffed. But Mike hadn’t missed the fact that Damien’s usually hyper-focused eyes had been following a certain girl around the huge open room all night, and he wondered what might be going on there. In one way or another, whether it was sexual interest or suspicion of wrongdoing in his domain, it most likely spelled trouble for her.
“I would go scope it out,” Zane said, near pouting, “but the last time I did, I caused a small riot and it was all over f*cking TMZ the next day. You don’t need that kind of publicity and neither do I.”
“No such thing as bad publicity. Do you know how long the line was the night after that happened? And you have the most dedicated bodyguard you could ask for right beside you,” Damien pointed out, gesturing at Mike with his beer. “Go be his wingman, Mike.”
“He doesn’t need a wingman. And the last thing I feel like doing is shoving groupies off him all night until he makes his pick, or going to jail for beating the shit out of jealous boyfriends looking to do him in.”
“Not in my place, you won’t,” Damien said icily. “But I could parade some flesh up here for you, Z, if you want.”
“What the f*ck are you now, a pimp?” Mike demanded.
Damien turned impassive dark eyes on him. “No, dumbass. But I have certain acquaintances who would drop their panties in a nanosecond to meet him.”
Of course. Zane’s brows raised in interest and Mike pushed himself up from the table. “I’ve had about all of you two I can take.” So much for brotherly bonding—he sometimes forgot what a couple of cavemen they could be, and people thought he was the bad guy. Plus Savannah hadn’t answered him yet, and he was fully disturbed about that now. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
He escaped down the stairs, leaving behind the flutter of shuffled cards and clinking of chips, shouts of victory and frustration. All of it was punctuated with the boom boom boom of the bass in the club. Reaching a quiet spot in the back offices—if any place in here could be considered quiet—he hit Savannah’s name in his contacts and waited to hear her voice . . .
. . . only to be greeted with her voicemail message. Shit.
“Hey, darlin’. Just checking on you. Call me back when you can. I miss you.”
On a whim, he pulled up a flight tracker app and looked up the day’s flights from Houston to New Orleans, wondering if she’d had a delay. No, hers had landed as scheduled. He hoped they hadn’t had trouble on the way home.
Or that her fight with Rowan hadn’t continued to the point that she’d given in to her family’s wishes and decided to cut all ties with him.
The thought was sharp, ugly, brutal, and it hit him in the chest harder than any opponent ever had in his life. For a moment, his lungs locked up along with most of the other life-supporting organs in his body—oh, f*ck, it hurt. Oh, baby, no, don’t let them . . .
He nearly leapt off the floor when his phone lit up with her number and sweet face—a picture he’d snapped of them before he’d left her at the hotel at three A.M. this morning. “Are you okay?” he barked in place of greeting.
“No,” she said, her voice weak and tiny and raw, as if her throat had been shredded from screaming . . . or crying.
Outrage and helplessness churned through his gut. Goddamn it, he should be there, she shouldn’t have to be facing this by herself when it was all because of him. Just as he was opening his mouth to speak, she said, “I don’t think I can talk right now. I’m sorry.”
“Savannah, I can’t take knowing you’re hurting. I’ll be there by f*cking sunrise if you don’t tell me something right now, I swear to Christ.”
“I watched the fight,” she said after a pause.
All of the organs that had tentatively resumed their functioning shut down again. “Why would you do that?”
“Rowan made me.”
Damn that girl. Mike understood the woman was hurting, and he was the cause of every bit of it, but that didn’t give her the right to continuously spread her pain around to everyone else who was trying to move on. Did it? “And what did you see?” he asked at last, dreading her answer with every fiber of his being.
“I still believe you,” she said softly. “It didn’t change my mind about that. Rowan is convinced you hit him after the ref called it and that might have been what . . . hurt him. I don’t think that. I think the damage was already done, you were just caught up. He fell, you saw your chance and took it.”
She was absolutely right about that. When he was in the cage, stalking his victory like a predator, primal instincts were at the forefront and they eclipsed any regard for rules or authority. He barely even remembered it; he’d been so in the zone, feeling no pain, not prepared to show any mercy.
“But seeing it again . . . ,” she went on haltingly, “ . . . how can I do this?”
They were back to square one, he realized. Rowan had shoved that fight in Savannah’s face again and it was as if it had happened today. Maybe for Rowan, it would always feel that way.
He didn’t know what to say. So his heart took over. “I really could fall for you, Savannah. I want to.”
She only sniffled in response, so he rushed on. “I know it’s soon, and this is damn sure the wrong time to tell you, but you caught me from the moment I first saw you. I thought about you from that day on, until I saw you again and you were even sweeter and more beautiful than I remembered. So yeah.” He chuckled ruefully. “I’ve had at least a little time to figure this out.”